In a typical Utility; there are multiple lines of
business that require the field work force to handle the various business
problems. The business problems are addressed through an effective back office
work management and field force systems as illustrated in Figure 1. The field
force systems or field mobility becomes the frontline for the utility on a day
to day basis in resolving the issues. The line of business and nature of work
will influence the application platform and hardware choices for field mobility
as illustrated in Figure 2.

Majority of large
utilities have implemented field mobility solution across lines of business and
traditionally this has been deploying "thick client" application either from a
standard product available in market or built in-house. Utilities have started
to realize the short comings in the existing foot print. Some of the common
challenges currently encountered are as listed below:

·Unable to leverage internet
connectivity - No support to switch between connected and disconnected modes

·Unable to leverage a duplex communication
capabilities that mobile devices and software offer

The
industry trend is to now move towards device independence and platform
independence for field mobility solutions.

Benefits
of Field Services Management (FSM)

Utilities with large field workforces adopted mobile
technologies and benefited by improved customer service and employee productivity.

Field service efficiency should be
a top priority for utility companies; as workforce in the field need to have
quick, easy and accurate access to data such as customer and asset information
in order to deliver safer, reliable and speedy service to end customers. Regardless of the nature of work involved; whether
it is attending an emergency response, responding to a customer request or complaint,
connection turn-on / turn-off or asset inspection and maintenance, FSM
technologies play a big role to improve their workforce efficiency and customer
satisfaction. From a financial aspect this will
help reduce operating costs and improve bottom line.

Transforming field workforce with suitable FSM solution can result in a
wide range of benefits that include:

·Latest up to date technologies
will enable easier integration of the solution with other systems,

·Will help utility companies use
advanced analytics which will aid the management in taking better decisions and
remedial measures if any gaps exist and work on continuous improvement of field
operations.

·Will be able to provide features
to send utility plans along with activities from the corporate source systems.

·Will enable the field personnel
to capture information on the field using audio, video images, bar code
scanning etc.

For
example, in the UK water market, utilities get incentivized based on the (1)
qualitative measurement (2) quantitative measurement of the level of service
provided to the end customers. Qualitative measurements are based on consumer
surveys while Quantitative measurements are based on number of complaints, or
unwanted calls a utility company may receive.

An efficiently designed FSM solution can help the
utility companies improve their SIM scores (both qualitative and quantitative)
there by help them have an advantage over competition.

In my next
blog, I will talk about the factors that one needs to keep in mind for choosing
the right FSM solution.

This blog is posted on behalf of Surya Srinivas Chavali, Principal Consultant, Infosys.